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Processing the Unthinkable: Hours After Lewiston, Maine Neighborhood Mass Murder · The Virtual Couch

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Hey, everybody, welcome to the Virtual Couch. I am your host, Tony Overbay. I'm a licensed
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marriage and family therapist. And today's episode is truly a very special episode. Today,
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I'm interviewing Joshua Shea, who is a friend and the co-author of our book, He's a Porn
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Addict Now What?, an expert and a former addict to answer your questions. And it was during
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the writing of the book, which took quite a long time, no thanks to myself that I got
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to know Josh pretty well. And while I don't think that we necessarily would have just
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struck up a friendship just naturally from bumping into each other on the street.
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But we've been working together now for quite a while and we have developed a very
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strong friendship. I had Josh on my podcast early on and he had written his first
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book, I believe, right after coming out of rehab.
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And then a few months later, he approached me about that. He's a porn addict book project.
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And I am so glad he did, because you really get to know somebody in writing a book
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together. And the book ended up being a bestseller for quite a while in the sexual
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health and recovery category.
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And it's helped a lot of people. and he and I recently finished up a project for TikTok,
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one of their new series, which is based on the book where we go into more depth about the questions.
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I highly recommend you check that out.
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But we meet roughly every week looking at potential projects.
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And then this past week, we traded messages on Wednesday night to see if we were on
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for the Thursday morning meeting. And Josh literally discovered
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that there was an active shooter still on the loose.
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And if you've heard about it in Lewiston, Maine, who had already killed 18 people and wounded 13 others.
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The site of the second group of killings was less than a mile from his house. So before we dive in,
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there's a few things I want to address that we are going to talk about. Sensitive, complex topics,
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and they really have real and immediate ramifications for a lot of people, including
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Josh. Because I don't think anybody wakes up in the morning expecting to find themselves a mile
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away from the site of a mass murder, but that's what happened to Josh last week. And the experience
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he went through was terrifying and unreal and just honestly just downright surreal. So first and
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foremost, my heart, and I know Josh's is this too, goes out to everybody who's been
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affected by this tragedy. Because I know there will be people that know him that will hear
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about this interview that there have been a lot of things that have happened to them.
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And so for those who have, especially the ones that have lost loved ones,
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words can't capture the depth of the pain and the sorrow that these events can cause.
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And I want to make sure that we approach the subject matter with the empathy and compassion
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and respect that it deserves. But I also know that we all grieve differently and there might
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be some things that we say that maybe will somebody might say well I can't believe they said that or why on earth would they think that?
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And Josh reached out to me because he was grappling with a ton of conflicting emotions.
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Because on one hand he wants to process all of it and on the other he was thinking,
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who am I to even talk about this when I was this close but I didn't lose anybody directly?
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And you know, that's a fair question because it speaks to the complexity of human emotions and the unique ways that we all deal with stress and fear and trauma.
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Because there really isn't a one-size-fits-all way to grieve or process experiences like this.
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So in today's episode, we're going to touch on a lot of things,
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including whether there is a right way to grieve and how we all cope differently based on all of our own unique life experiences.
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And then the challenges of living with uncertainty, because it's really, really uncomfortable.
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What do we do with our discomfort? And then there's there's the thing, there's judgment.
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You know, judgment comes easy, especially from the outside looking in.
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But before you go thinking, well, why did Josh say this or why didn't Tony ask that?
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Or I can't believe that he was smiling at this point or they even chuckled at any point.
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I just would love to encourage you to pause and just kind of ask yourself, if that is
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the case, why are you quick to judge somebody else's experience or their reactions?
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And I'm saying that from a differentiated place, because it really is worth looking
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inward, because that reaction does say more about you than it does about the person that
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is expressing themselves, either Josh or myself.
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So whether we're talking about a national tragedy that makes the headlines or something
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that you listening to this are going through that nobody else knows about, it's really
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important to remember that you are responding the way you are because you're you and you're the only
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version of you that's ever been on the face of the earth and this is the first time you're going
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through life and these things are happening. So you respond and you react the way you do because
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you're you. So that's a good place to start and that's how you're navigating life at this moment.
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So I think it's just important for everybody when they start to get overwhelmed and start to
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have so much uncertainty to really take a good old deep breath in through the nose out through
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the mouth, not the other way around, because I don't want you hyperventilating.
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This is a really unique opportunity to approach this conversation with the sensitivity it demands,
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but also with just the opportunity to observe and check out your own judgments. And what does that
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say about yourself? And I mean that in a, man, we all want to get better and do better. And this is
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a way to really check yourself in real time. So with that said, here's my chat with friend Josh
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Shea. Joshua Shea. Hi. How are you doing? It's been a week. I know. And people just
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say, how are you doing? And it just reflexively came out of my mouth, but you've got a lot going on.
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Michael Meyers I remember when I was in my rehab for porn addiction that there was one woman and I who were always up first and we always said, hi, how are you?
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In the morning, and we always made the joke that clearly we're not well, we're here. Tanner Iskra Right.
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Michael Meyers And recognized how, hey, how are you doing? Is almost the same thing as, hi, I see you.
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Tanner Iskra Yeah, yeah, you exist. So, we switch to that. We switch to, hi, I see you. Hi, I see you.
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Well, hi, Josh. I see you and you do exist. That's a fact, right?
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Yeah. Okay, so maybe- That's what it means so much of the time. Yeah.
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I have never been in a situation like I've been in the last few days and it is difficult
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to know how to navigate this exactly.
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Well, if you don't mind, let me take you through the text because I thought it was
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was really fascinating and dockingly watch me even bring what my experience was, which
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is just talk about ego.
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But you put that, I've been mentioning that to people on my tick talks or elsewhere is
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that this is something that even when it's a million miles away, you have to process.
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And like we said, just a minute ago before we started is that hopefully this is your,
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closest contact with a mass murder, I hope, but which I'm sure you thought would have thought that you would never be
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within a mile of the active shooter either.
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Okay, literally, the last the last text I wrote, yeah. Before the a, if you remember, at the beginning of October, which as
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we're filming, this is like, three weeks ago, yeah, we had that nationwide test of the emergency. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I
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am sitting in my office working on whatever I was working on when all of a sudden that went off. Yeah.
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And it's like, well, what the hell? Yeah. There is an active shooter.
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Um, let me, I can tell you exactly what it said.
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It said… Josh, while you're looking at that, I know you have dogs in the room and it's funny
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because as you pull up your phone, it made a squeaky sound and I thought, wow, Josh's
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phone is… I'm not sure. Yeah. It's not a real phone.
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Okay. Squeaking.
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Okay. Helps my teething. Okay. Emergency alert. An active shooter is located in Lewiston.
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Avoid the area and shelter in place immediately.
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Lewiston officials will follow up as the situation de-escalates.
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What time was that? That was sometime around 7pm. I don't have that exactly.
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Tanner Iskra Okay. So, when you sent me the text and said, do you plan on meeting in the morning? And
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I said, oh, sorry, I meant to tell you I'm not available. And then you said, it's okay.
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We have an active shooter situation making national news here right now. I mean, so that
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was, we were in it and you and I, we wrote a book together a few years ago and then we
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just did a TikTok series. And so, we meet every Thursday morning at my 6am, your 9am.
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So, Wednesday night, we check in. And so, I send that and just the irony there was I
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about to record a podcast with my daughter and I think she's coming on and then you said we have
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an active shooter situation making national news and I feel so insensitive because we joke a lot
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and I respond and I say we joke a lot we do so I say dude give it up already it's not worth it and
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then you send me a screenshot of the at least 16 dead and multiple shootings in Maine you said from
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CNN took place a mile from my house and then I felt horrible and I just spill it on my daughter
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who's very sensitive that, oh my gosh, I just said a really insensitive thing to my friend Josh,
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who is a mile from an active shooter, admittedly worse than ready to record. And then it's kind of.
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Like, does it really matter right now? So pick it up from there, Josh.
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Yeah. Part of the things that go through my head the last couple days is, does any of this matter?
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And is there a right way to mourn? And what happens next? My wife and I today,
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It's she often processes by watching true crime.
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She processes by watching things like six feet under. Can't tell you how many times I've seen that series.
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Brilliant, but I've seen it too many times. Okay.
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I feel like I've seen every dateline in every 2020 that's ever been.
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And she was watching that this afternoon. And I had the feel.
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I had the it dawned on me for the first time.
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I'm going to be watching.
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Let me get rid of this.
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Go get rid of your squeaky phone. So Wednesday night, after I send that text and then exchange text, and I'm now feeling bad and
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talking to my daughter about it. And then you send the thing. I say, okay, man, take care.
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And I'll be thinking about you. What happened? So you get the emergency broadcast system alert.
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And then what happens?
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Yeah. So my daughter, I don't know how she's plugged in or where, but she's one of those
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24 year olds who's plugged in. So before the local media, they basically told us
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to through social media to turn off all our lights and get down. Wow Josh, what was that like?
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It was difficult for me because in a crisis situation like this, the great majority of
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crisis situations I've been a part of, and I've been a part of a lot because I worked in the news. Exactly.
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It is run toward the problem. Wow. Okay.
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And not a matter of I'm going to go be a hero. It's run toward the problem.
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Find out what's happening and let people know.
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And I haven't been in an active newsroom in over 10 years, but that's what kicked
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in 9, 11, Oklahoma city, a bunch of elections. We had a, you know, catastrophe of an ice
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storm here in 1998, every major news event for the most part from 1995 to 2010, I was
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in a newsroom and I could put my emotions on hold. I was no, I was not a civilian here.
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I was part of the media and my job to tell people what's happening. So I'm used to hoaxes. I'm used to things that
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aren't going to happen. You know, the amount of times that I was working, I worked the police beat every Friday night
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for the reporter who was off that day. Okay. And I would, I
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would run to my car, the moment we heard there's a structure fire over the scanner. Nine out of 10 times this tells you how
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old this was nine out of 10 times by the time I had got to the car.
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My beeper had gone off to get back inside. We had a code that said, you know, false alarm. Yeah,
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to just kill it. Wow. Most of the time before I even made it to my car in the parking lot
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to go to the fire, or go to whatever it was. Well, call back was burnt toast. Wow. Okay.
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Or something like so I am programmed to believe nothing is really happening. So.
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When my wife was conversing with my daughter, I was just going about doing my my my work,
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minimizing it kind of like you were with the Joe Yeah, whatever,
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whatever. She's like, we've got to get down. We've got to get you know, what are you talking about? Wow, big deal. So then,
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but my instincts kicked in. So I brought my laptop downstairs to where my wife and I were and I called up the scanner. Oh, on
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the internet. I wouldn't thought of that. Yeah. And that's what if you want to know what's happening in real time in a
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a situation, go to the police and fire scanner, because that is where the news is
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happening. You can look up your local police and scanner traffic and do that. So we went
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there and I could tell within a moment, this was different. Wow. It reminded me a little bit
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of the time 15 years ago that there was some
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smoke drifting up my street and my wife's is that a bonfire? And I'd been at enough fires. I
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And I was like, no, this is major, call 911,
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and ran outside because my neighbor's house was on fire.
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This was, okay, this is major, this is nothing to laugh at, this is a big deal.
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And that was right about the time that it started to hit the news media online.
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And that's, I think I sent you a screenshot. Yeah, so from CNN.
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And then at that point, was your daughter and wife there at home?
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My daughter lives 30 miles north. Gotcha, okay. that wasn't, she was not in any danger.
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And I tried to rationalize with my wife that, okay, we know he's gone to two public places.
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He's not targeting house, what are the odds of him targeting our specific neighborhood?
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Okay, well, that's what I was curious about because you showed me then the map the next morning,
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the circles of, and it was within a mile. I mean, so I assumed that, yeah.
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The second, the first shooter, the first shooting location, for those who aren't familiar,
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they're looking years from now.
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For those who aren't familiar, The first shooting location was about a mile from my parents' house where I grew up.
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It was at a bowling alley.
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It was where my high school prom took place.
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Yeah, there was an event center. Okay. Okay. That makes a little more sense. I was telling
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you jokes about your height. There were plenty of people in their prom dresses and suits bowling
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that night. Um, that's, that's the community. So that there was that happened. We didn't hear
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about it until he was at the second location. How long after the first one was that? How long
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were, was it between four miles away? So he was, I don't, I haven't heard anything about how long
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he was at either location yet. And I'm sure they know it probably do the math backwards.
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But he went from the first location where he killed and injured, I think he killed about eight or nine in each
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location and injured another 10 in each location. It was pretty even.
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Uh, he got in his car after he left there, he drove four miles to a pool hall that is less than a mile from my
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house and I showed you the drawing.
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0.7 miles from my house and he killed just as many people there and then left.
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And nothing, when he hadn't shown up shown up. And there were a few of those
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immediate false flags that pop up. Somebody said he had gone to the local Walmart distribution center
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because that was full of people and that was in the same neighborhood.
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Or maybe he was heading here to this or here to that. But within an hour or two, it was pretty clear
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that there were not going to be any more killings or it very much appeared that way.
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And so we turned on the television finally and started to watch both the local and the national media and frankly didn't really turn
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it off until this morning. And we're on and we're you and I are talking Sunday evening your time.
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We're talking Sunday evening here so it's been four days since this happened and uh.
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Were you able to sleep that first night Josh uh Wednesday night?
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I think I went to bed at 3 a.m because I I play the history I play the statistics
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In 90% of these situations, the gunman kills themselves shortly thereafter.
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So I assume that's what he did because, uh, Wednesday night, about two and a half hours
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after the shootings happened, they discovered his car 10 miles east of here at a boat launch. Okay.
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I mean, while some people were saying, oh, you know, he has a boat, he has a registered jet ski.
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It's I know this river. Nobody is, no, he's not voting on the river.
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He's not trying to get away on a jet ski because we have so many dams on this river.
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He wouldn't be able to get too far, even if that was his plan. Okay.
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I assumed that because he had guns, he had probably walked into the woods and shot himself
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or walked into the water and shot himself. He'd be found. So I was never really scared
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that he was going to come to my house or where he was going to, because I just, I know the area.
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I know the history of this.
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I've seen enough of these in my life that the fact that they didn't find the body for
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two days is actually a rarity.
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Usually the gunman is in the high school gym, or he's just outside the movie theater, or he's
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either immediately gunned down or kills himself.
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And the thing that was different here was we were in lockdown from Wednesday night through
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Friday, late evening and Friday, Friday, around 5pm locally, they said that the shelter in place
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order was lifted. And, uh, my wife said, do you think that's just because they think they're
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dealing with a dead body now? And I said, I I think it's too soon.
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I think they must have found the body.
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And an hour and a half later, it came out that his body had been discovered about a mile from that boat ramp in a trailer at a recycling.
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Sector where he had previously worked.
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So I don't know if he was trying to hide. I don't know why he went there and who knows exactly how people make their
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decisions and why, when, when they have that happening, it's very, very weird
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because especially, uh, Wednesday night and more
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Thursday as the victim's names came out, you know, I
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was kind of in the back of my head, always waiting for that phone call, always waiting for that bad
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piece of news that someone I was very, very connected with was shot and killed.
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Uh, thankfully that never came.
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I have a lot of acquaintances or friend of a friend situations that are much more direct to this.
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And it's weird because it's like I almost it's I don't say survivor guilt, but it's,
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so many more people around here are suffering so much more so much deeper than I am tonight,
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that I feel like like like I said, I feel like I'm processing this in a very.
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Self centered way coming on here and talking to you. I feel like who am I to shine a spotlight
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on myself, but I had another friend of mine who is a therapist say to me, you are now,
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from one of these places.
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You said, it's insane. I know this story, but I've never seen it. Starring locations I know
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and people I know. I remember around 9-11 when people talked about even me where I used to
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travel to a certain place and fly a certain place. And my own brain wanted to say, man,
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it could have been you, but it really, it was so far off from that. But I mean, do you find
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yourself saying, I know those places and I know those things?
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22 years since nine 11. Yeah. Every time I am in and I'm in Maine, obviously, anytime I'm near the
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Portland area, I see this one hotel. And I think that's where a couple of the nine 11 guys stayed.
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Yeah. Because a couple of the nine 11 guys flew out of Portland to Boston and then went Boston to
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the world trade center. And so there is a connection there. And because there's that
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connection. I still 23, you know, 22 years later, think
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about it. When I passed that hotel, that's where those guys stayed. And yeah, as I was saying earlier, before my dog
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got loud, hopefully it was edited out. I've never seen this show. I've never seen this, this national news thing. It's
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like nine 11 happened here, but for nobody else. Yeah. It's,
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it's, it's like the shelter in place order. Well, when COVID kept us all home, that was one thing, but now it's just here.
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Yeah.
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And I was thinking about today how a 33 year old person, which is, you know, 15 years younger than I am, they remember 911. If they're from this community, they remember 911. They went through COVID. And now they went through this. Yeah, a lot of drama to pack in 20 years. I've never had these kinds of I mean, maybe the challenger explosion, right? Or I don't even know of what I could say before
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9, 11 was the defining critical murder
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death moment in my life. And now, you know, some people in their early thirties
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have gone through, who live here, have
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gone through three of these. And now I'm.
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Sure that much like the news channels did the 25th anniversary of the catastrophe, catastrophe of the ice
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storm. It's not just going to be local channels who are memorializing this,
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forever. It's you still see Sandy Hook. You still see Columbine. You still see all of
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this stuff. And is Lewiston, because it was the worst mass murder in this year, because
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it's the worst mass murder in history in Maine, because it's the 10th worst in the US history,
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does Lewiston now mean mass murder to everybody?
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Right. Okay. But if you graduated this year from Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, you go
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to New York or Miami or Dallas for a job, and they see you graduated from Columbine,
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this year, which you weren't even born when the shootings happened in 1999.
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I bet the first question they still ask is, oh, Columbine. Yeah. Yeah. And did you know anybody or?
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Yeah, yeah. Is that the future for this place? And these are questions that can't be answered. And that's what.
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I'm wrestling with now is what is my identity of my town? What is the identity of this town?
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What happens when you are one of those places?
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Yeah. Well, you know what's interesting? From a psychology standpoint, we have this concept
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called the relational frame, you know, you put something in a frame with another and make those
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associations. And I was just watching the Boston Marathon documentary about the bombing. And I
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thought of you with that too in hindsight because they had the shelter in place while they were
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looking for the last shooter. And I thought about the concept where you can see why they came back
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and wanted to be Boston strong and, you know, we're running the marathon again because I feel
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like they want to change that relational frame to be, okay, we make it through these things.
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And then it seems like maybe in other, other situations, that becomes the identity, right?
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Well, the only reason anybody would know anything about Lewiston, Maine, for the most part,
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is you're either a big Patrick Dempsey fan because he comes from here. You know Bates College
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because it's located here. Or you remember the fact that the Cassius Clay-Sunnyliston rematch
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took place here. Ever you see that famous photo of Muhammad Ali like lording over.
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Yeah, I know that one.
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Yeah. That took place again, less than a mile from my house.
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I did not know that. Okay.
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That was 1965. That's what this community has still been famous for. And that's damn near 60
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years ago. And so now this community is going to be famous for this, probably. And then
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just a community of people who, like I said, I sometimes I feel a little bit guilty that
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I put this in any terms of myself, but there's now within a 10 mile circle here, probably
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probably about 100,000 people who have just had this happen within 10 miles of their house
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who Transcribed by https://otter.ai,
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most of us have been bowling there. Most of us have been, have been to the pool hall.
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That's where my son and my wife used to play on Sunday afternoons. It was at that pool
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hall. You know, my dad up until a few years ago was in a like a Friday morning bowling
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league there. And you make these connections to it. Even if he was still in a Friday bowling
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League, this wouldn't have affected him. So am I reaching? Am I trying to make this about
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me? How in the hell do you process this? I don't even know where to begin. I don't know
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what I should feel bad about, what I should just push down and say that's reality and,
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radical acceptance.
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Yeah, I was about to say. I hate that phrase, it is what it is, but I also love it because
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from an acceptance standpoint, that just happened and here's what I'm feeling. But then I've
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I've never been in that kind of a situation, but it's also interesting,
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because of course I've told several people, hey, my friend Josh lived within a mile
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and tell him my family.
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And it wasn't from a, like I'm wearing this like a badge of honor because I just felt like this,
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but it is the wild way we want connection with others and we want to share maybe the experience.
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But you had also mentioned something in one of the texts we traded that I so appreciated,
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where you said, okay, I apologize for my dogs.
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Your dogs are being good dogs. They're good boys. But as a student of the mind,
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it's fascinating to see what's happening with others around me. And tell me what,
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tell me about that. What were you seeing?
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I mean, it's, I think everybody is going through what I'm going through. Whether you know somebody
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or not is what do we do now? Last night, we didn't want to eat. We didn't want to make food here,
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but we really want to go out because we didn't know what we'd face.
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So I went and got some takeout sushi and I thought the I thought every place would be packed,
26:05
And people itching to get out after a couple days.
26:09
It was really empty out there. It was still really slow. And when I went and picked it up.
26:16
Walking into that place, it was kind of like walking into a funeral parlor. They still had
26:20
the loud music, which I can't believe they did. They still had the sports on the TV. But it was
26:27
it was a quiet scene. And that's what it really feels like it is right now. It's just a quiet
26:34
scene of so what happens next? And I've, I've started for and I when I entered recovery nine and a half years ago, part of me
26:45
stepping away from my life as a journalist was to not follow the news very much. So I have to admit, I am probably not a great
26:54
citizen of my town or a great citizen of my state or the country, or the world with how little I know is going on. And
27:03
That's been just to protect myself.
27:05
That's been to aid in my recovery.
27:10
You can't ignore something like this, but I decided after the morning news conferences today
27:16
that I'm going to pull back on this coverage quite a bit.
27:21
Well, and Josh, I think it speaks to, like you say, I like what you're saying,
27:24
everybody's going through it there.
27:25
Everybody has their own versions of whatever that is, and I look at how we get rid of our discomfort,
27:30
and sometimes people get rid of it by ignoring things.
27:32
Sometimes people, they want a group experience. Sometimes people want to feel special.
27:37
Sometimes people want to, you know, get angry about a cause.
27:40
I mean, there's so many different ways to get rid of that discomfort.
27:43
Well, and there have been people I've seen on social media, angered at how other people are. Yeah.
27:52
Yeah. Yeah. And to me, it's like, okay, if you know, a narcissist is going to make this about themselves. Yeah.
28:00
Somebody who is an empath and compassionate is going to make this about the lives of the people.
28:06
It may feel overwhelming. Yeah. Somebody who's a gun advocate is going to make this another way.
28:11
Who's a mental health advocate is going to make this another way. And.
28:16
It's funny, I noticed looking, I didn't like watching the national channels, because they've Okay,
28:24
we're reporting from New York. And
28:26
here is our mass murder expert from Texas. And here's our other person out in LA. And they're all talking.
28:34
It's like none of you people have ever stepped foot here. Yeah. Yeah.
28:38
No, we do not live in the you know, rural utopia, you are, you know, quaint little Norman Rockwell town you were talking about.
28:48
That's not where we are.
28:50
So, at one point, when I was waiting for you to jump on today, I even pulled up CNN because
28:53
I thought, you know, I'm just going to read some of the, some of the other coverage that
28:56
came in. And the first thing I click on, it's 15 people shot. And then I thought, oh wait,
29:01
but that's not it. It was last night, 15 people shot at Halloween party in Chicago. So, the
29:06
crazy part is the way that things are going. And I like what you're saying about if somebody
29:09
is, you can take an angle on this or anything. Somebody could say, well, at least, you know,
29:13
people weren't killed at this one or somebody, a gun advocate or a gun rights person, or
29:17
a, I mean, it's just wherever you want to attach meaning. It's just crazy.
29:22
Yeah, absolutely. It's, uh, and I think that, I think that everywhere else, this debate
29:29
needs to be going on, whether it's gun control, whether it's mental health, you know, I, this
29:34
is this is a problem that's going to have to be solved by many moving parts. Yeah. And I think that's why we are afraid
29:42
to tackle it because it's it seems too big. It's too many moving parts. But.
29:48
That's not the debate that I feel like having right now. I worry that this is going to make people with mental health look
29:57
even worse, especially locally. I worry that mental health will around here will now mean, you know, oh, you're going to be
30:04
that guy, right? Yeah. There was an article locally that boy, the gun shops have been doing great business since yesterday. Wow.
30:13
Okay. Hey, well, I feel like I you know, I think you would have said this in your text, I'm assuming you didn't know who the person was or anything like that.
30:20
But I mean, I was reading the part about that just mental health, his mental health had declined
30:26
rapidly. But then I even wondered, was that just something that someone is assuming or if there's-
30:32
No, he actually, he was, according to the news that's been reported, he was
30:39
was, um, hospitalized for two weeks this past summer, 2023. He was hospitalized for two
30:47
weeks in New York when he was at, I believe a national guard training that people said
30:52
he was talking about shooting up his hometown national guard location or wherever he normally
30:58
trained and they kept him. And I think this was New York. They kept him for observation
31:03
for a couple, a couple of weeks and then let them out.
31:06
And Maine's gun laws are very pro hunter friendly. So they're very gun friendly.
31:15
Maine is a nice quaint rural place that ironically last Monday was voted the safe
31:23
or was named the safest state in the country by some organization.
31:28
Yeah. Yeah. It was like literally three days earlier. Wow. It's one of these things where it's, it's, it's thought on top of thought on top of thought,
31:37
can we do anything about guns? Can we do about anything about mental health? Am I just
31:41
thinking about this stuff on a national level? Uh, because it's easier than focusing on what
31:46
just happened here. I haven't been a real active part of my community for about 10 years since I
31:53
I got into recovery, I've pulled back a lot.
31:55
So do I even have the right to have the deep sadness or deep pride if I'm not one of those people
32:03
on the inside anymore?
32:05
When a tragedy like this happens, my son was in college in Ithaca, in New York,
32:12
and I've been trying to keep up with him and make sure he's okay,
32:14
because what happens when you're...
32:18
500 miles away from an instance like this. Yeah, what goes through so I've been trying
32:23
to keep in touch with him and make sure that he's okay. He didn't know anybody. Okay. And
32:28
you know that everything is okay there. Make sure my wife is okay, that she's a much more
32:35
of an empath than I could ever hope to be. Yeah. And is she okay with what's happening?
32:41
She's had a lot of trauma in her life lately. Um, you know, what is this going to do to her?
32:47
If anything. I have recognized in the last few days, thankfully, I haven't wanted to drink once.
32:53
I haven't wanted to look at pornography once. So that's another big sign to me that all the
32:59
healing and all the recovering worked. Yeah. Yeah. The foundation's set there pretty strong.
33:06
It worked. I'm glad, but it is something that is at the forefront of my mind.
33:12
And I've tried to tell myself that Monday morning, my wife goes back to work, ironically,
33:18
at the hospital where they brought out 90% of the injured and dead. And I've got to keep going. I've
33:25
got sessions to have with people. I have interviews to give about pornography, addiction and betrayal
33:32
trauma. I've got to keep going too. And how do I do that in tandem in my old self would just
33:41
push this down and forget about it. That's how the old me dealt with trauma.
33:46
But I'm not even sure at this point, how much trauma I am allowing myself to have.
33:50
Tavis Well, and I think that there's
33:51
something there. Let me find my soapbox. Because if anybody has listened to and hung in there with
33:56
us this far, you said earlier, something I really appreciate, which is people always say, what's the
33:59
right way to grieve? Or is there a right way to grieve as a mental health professional? There
34:04
isn't, you're grieving the way you're grieving. And I feel like people will say, shouldn't I be
34:07
be doing it this way more or is it bad that I didn't do it a certain way? And I
34:11
always start with the place of well you're just being who you are and this is the first time you've ever been in this situation with all the things that
34:17
lead up to this moment so I think that's significant. But I appreciate what you're saying about
34:22
How do you implement this into your, what it feels like to be you as a person that helps people as a coach?
34:28
And I had a daughter go through a, almost lost her life a couple of years ago in an accident.
34:33
And all the things I had said that I felt so good about, about noticing thoughts and emotions and inviting them to come along with me while you engage in things that matter.
34:41
And it sounds so good until you're somebody actually going through it.
34:45
And then it made me rethink a lot of things. But I did find it helped me be a little more empathetic, or it became part of my story of not that I could ever imagine what other people are going through.
34:55
But now I really understand that I don't understand what other people are going through.
34:58
But then the more that I'm being open and real, that if somebody else now has a reaction that's negative toward that, well, it almost helps me understand who I can really connect with and who I can't.
35:08
Because if somebody's saying, okay, enough about you right now, if I had just experienced something, then I thought, okay, well, that this is somebody that isn't very safe for me to talk to right now.
35:16
And I think it's so, right? And I think it's so important also that as a therapist,
35:19
a lot of times there's a lot of different ways to do therapy.
35:22
And one of them is if you just talk, and I'm saying this more for people listening,
35:25
because I think you understand this as well as somebody who helps people.
35:28
But the more that we talk about things and have somebody that is listening saying,
35:32
oh man, tell me more, the less scary those things are.
35:36
But if we keep them inside and our inside thoughts and voices,
35:39
then they typically devolve into a, okay, I'm terrified, what's wrong with me?
35:44
I'm broken, I should be doing it this way. So I just think if anything,
35:47
if the more that people are able to express themselves, especially with people that are not gonna say,
35:52
oh, why didn't you do this? Or I would have done this.
35:54
Like those people, they can hit the bricks right now.
35:57
But if somebody is gonna listen, I think that'd be a big help.
35:59
Well thursday i canceled my sessions and i had one interview and i told the people i can come on and try to do this but the last twenty four hours have been difficult and i said let's just put it off to the new year.
36:12
And in the sessions i have had the last two days i right up front said i don't know if you've seen the news some of my clients have some you know don't follow the news at all.
36:22
And I said, there's a major, major thing happened here. Luckily I'm not close to any of the dead or injured that I know of yet.
36:30
Um, I think I would have gotten that call by now, but this thing is, is ricocheting around in my mind.
36:38
I, I'm going to be here for you. I'm going to be present for you.
36:42
This may even be good because it can distract a little bit, focus on something else and somebody else. Yeah.
36:48
Uh, but I just want you to know up front that, holy crap, I'm from one of those places. Now,
36:55
when you say this can't happen here, I know everybody listening is still saying,
36:59
yeah, it can't happen here. It actually can. And that's when you texted that. Yeah,
37:05
that can happen. You know, and I can't tell you what it's like to be from one of those places
37:11
because I don't know yet. I can't tell you how do you, how do you move on? I don't know yet.
37:16
I don't know what I know or don't know right now. I mean, it's, I've had a lot of crazy stuff happen in my life because of, was a
37:25
reporter.
37:26
I've seen a lot of crazy stuff happen in my life, you know, where I've posted more
37:31
than the average person.
37:32
I've probably seen my fair share of disasters and major news events and that,
37:38
and this kind of trumps them all.
37:42
And there have been times where I've walked away from scenes of fires or other things like that and been a little bit shaken.
37:51
Uh, but I've never experienced anything like this and that's, and I know I'm
37:56
repeating myself again and again, maybe this will, this'll be a fantastic, you
38:00
know, thing to watch for me in a year.
38:02
Uh, it's, it's difficult. it's difficult to accept that this is now going to be part of my journey.
38:14
Oh, Josh. And again, narcissistic as hell. No, no, no. Well, egocentric, we'll call it that. That sounds better.
38:21
Egocentric, yeah. Egocentric is that I have a hard enough time keeping my shit together.
38:28
Without being from a mass murder site. And when I travel, when I go anywhere,
38:35
where when I do anything, is that what this is gonna be now?
38:39
And I don't wanna not stay here because it's not safe. It's incredibly safe here.
38:45
It's incredibly safe here, but.
38:48
Is this going to be the world's most depressing place to live now?
38:51
See, and it's so wild. I appreciate this because you can't prepare for it. You can't plan on it.
38:56
And if somebody right now is, because I am, I'm doing the whole thing about I can't even imagine
39:00
and luckily that probably won't happen here. But then people can take that either way and then they
39:05
can start to become, well, wait, maybe it could. And now I'm going to be overly sensitive to all
39:09
the different things around and I'm going to start to not go out as much. And so then I do go with
39:13
with that acceptance, you know, acceptance doesn't mean apathy.
39:15
It means that taking it in without defense. So then if I accept the fact that it could happen, then I'm going to live my life.
39:20
But then all of a sudden that could be really scary as well.
39:23
So it is just so such a mind trip here.
39:26
I had to say to my wife, you know, uh, I think, I think I said it yesterday.
39:30
The days have blended together.
39:32
It's been like 12 hours awake, 12 hours of sleep or, or 14 hours awake, 10 hours
39:39
of sleep, 14 hours awake. So it's, it's hard to, you know, I looked up at the, the, the date when we started,
39:45
it's, Oh my God, Halloween's in two days.
39:47
Oh, right. Oh yeah. Yeah.
39:49
Halloween's in two days. Who knew? Yeah. And, and.
39:53
Oh my God. What does that mean around here? Maybe, maybe everybody ignores it and just moved forward, right.
39:57
Or people, if I turn on CNN or Fox news or any national news network, there's going to
40:06
be a, how did the people of, of central Maine conduct Halloween just days after the tragedy.
40:13
Exactly. And then people will make judgments on that of like, I can't believe they did,
40:16
or of course they did. You know? Yeah.
40:18
I don't know. I mean, thanks. I'm not going to any parties. I don't have any, uh, any kids who
40:24
are trick or treating, so I don't have to make any decisions and it doesn't have to mean anything to
40:29
me per se. But yeah, what I just keep coming back to. So what's tomorrow gonna be like? Yeah. So what's tomorrow gonna be like?
40:40
And maybe this is like losing a close family member. Maybe it's not I it has a feeling of watching the the planes hit the
40:52
trade center. Because I saw that second one on TV live after I heard what was happening.
40:59
It has that sort of some of the elements of the COVID, of isolation, of lockdown.
41:06
There are now memorials going up, but this is three, four days after this happened.
41:13
When you talk about places like Uvalde in Texas, which was the last one that was worse
41:19
than this about a year and a half ago, the gunman, I don't remember if he killed himself
41:24
or if the cops finally got him, but he was dead right after the incident.
41:28
The Columbine shooter's dead right after the incident.
41:31
This community was on lockdown for a few days. Days.
41:35
I mean, I haven't asked him about this yet. My brother's got a six-year-old son and a
41:41
three-year-old daughter.
41:42
That's the stuff. I'm so, I feel, I feel so bad for them of what they had to go through,
41:46
but I don't even know what they had to deal with or what that was like.
41:50
Schools, schools in this area were closed Thursday. Then it was like the rest of Maine
41:55
was like, Oh my God, they didn't catch him. Okay. School everywhere is closed Friday.
41:59
And then locally, there are I believe that the town of Lewiston is not having school
42:07
again, I haven't seen anything. I'm not digging. Yeah. But, you know, tomorrow's not going
42:14
to be normal for a lot of people. And I don't I feel so much for those parents who have
42:21
to explain that to their kids. I remember being a kid, scared to death that there was
42:26
is going to be nuclear war between Russia and the US. That was that's what I grew up scared of. Same. Yeah. And kids today,
42:34
I don't think they even know what the Cold War means. Yeah.
42:38
But holy crap. 911 COVID if you're from here now this it's been a surreal experience.
42:54
The feelings of of mass disaster of nine eleven and the feelings of being trapped of kovid.
43:03
Kind of came together and descended upon my town.
43:09
Or the rest of the world to watch for a couple days it was it will be on twenty twenty forever there will be date line special there will be entire yeah the netflix series there will be everything yeah.
43:22
Yes, in 20 years, there's going to be the Netflix Lewiston series.
43:26
I will probably know people who are being fictionalized.
43:33
I'm sure there are people, I think anybody who's a parent has probably thought to themselves,
43:36
how do I make sure my kid doesn't become a serial killer?
43:40
Did Jeffrey Dahmer's parents do something wrong? The show sure made it look like they did, but did Jeffrey Dahmer's parents do something
43:49
wrong or is he just wired that way?
43:51
Is my parenting going to contribute to something?
43:55
Because I'm sure there were very good parents out there whose kids end up as murderers whose
43:59
kids end up doing horrible things, and they're left wondering about themselves.
44:04
But it's more of a, I never thought I would have to wonder I never thought my kid would be like this.
44:11
Yeah, yeah.
44:13
And this is a little bit I think of how I feel with since I've been a kid watching,
44:20
You know, when school shootings were rare, when you and I were kids, they still happened
44:23
occasionally to today, where it seems like there's two or three in the news every week,
44:29
if not every day, for sure.
44:31
It's still one of those things where it's like, Oh my God, that must suck for those people.
44:36
Glad I'll never have to find you are now one of those people.
44:41
Yeah. Yeah. And just to say that out loud, I'm now one of those people.
44:47
Who was in a town that had a mass murder tragedy and i think to josh anybody there me people listening right now they're gonna stick they just made a quick judgment will he just needs to or he's making it or whatever
45:00
that is something that nobody can imagine unless you are going through and i think that's exactly what i'm here and is that that is something you never anticipated in your there and it's still a trip
45:09
And I'm sure for the parents and the siblings and the husbands and wives who lost people,
45:16
they're not even thinking about this yet. It'll probably be a couple years before they can get
45:22
to the point of, this happened here? Because it's so much about their loved one right now.
45:30
I'm probably 96% further along processing than they are. And I appreciate that because I mean, we skipped over that at the beginning, but we were, you've,
45:39
mentioned in your texts and I think we talked right up before we started recording that
45:42
we know that this is just your experience. That's what we're talking about. And we've
45:46
already acknowledged that there are people that are dealing with, I can't even imagine
45:49
having lost a loved one because the for real survivor's guilt or the, I should have told
45:53
him not to go or I should have, whatever those things are.
45:56
Yeah. There was a father and son who were killed. There was a husband and wife who were
46:01
were killed. Man. Probably my closest connection to this is the city counselor who lost his son. Um, when I was a city counselor, I sat directly next to
46:13
him. Um, I know the guys got a heart, the size of Texas. I can't imagine what any
46:19
of them are going through. And do I go, do I send a card saying, thinking of you,
46:24
even though I haven't talked to the dude in eight years, or do I just mind my own
46:27
business, because that's kind of like making it about myself.
46:30
Is this another way for me to be connected to it? Is this another way for me to heal?
46:34
Is this being selfish?
46:37
Should I just shut up? Am I doing a disservice to my community?
46:41
Am I looking like a bastard coming on here?
46:45
Trying to talk about this stuff with you part of me earlier today when i was sitting i was watching
46:50
2020 maybe i should just talk to tony with the camera off i know i know i thought about the
46:54
same thing we were even talking about that where we were saying okay neither one of us wants to
46:58
exploit anything but then the mental health part and me and the person that you help people as well
47:02
this says okay i kind of feel like just having the conversation and yeah accepting the fact people
47:07
are going to make their own judgments about it i'll accept that because i think it just shows
47:11
that people are going to think so many things and what you just said there I think is so key of how
47:17
people process where it's like I don't even know am I doing it right and it's like I'm just doing
47:20
it. I don't want anybody to think that you were the one who come on my show, come on my show,
47:26
talk about this. It was because a couple people who I who have known me along the way whose shows
47:32
and podcasts I've been on along the way asked me to do an interview and I never thought about that
47:37
but hey, there's their connection to it. I know, right? Yeah. And I felt bad when you said it. I
47:42
was like, well, I do want to talk to you about it. And I think it would help, but I don't want to
47:45
exploit anything either. But here we are. Right. And that's what, that's when I asked you, Hey,
47:49
you know, if, if I am going to talk about this, I am cut from the cloth, whether you think it's
47:56
right, wrong, or don't have an opinion of, I need to share about this, this, no, I need to run
48:03
towards this, I need to let people know how I'm feeling. So maybe they feel that way. Yeah, one of the greatest things I.
48:11
Enjoy every aspect of educating and writing and talking about porn addiction and betrayal trauma with people. But what I
48:19
really like is connecting one on one on one. And I had a this was fantastic. It was on Wednesday, it was actually my
48:27
My last client before this happened was a African woman who was about 15 years younger than me.
48:37
And she heard me on a podcast and just wrote to me, you know, can we do this one session?
48:42
I was like, yes. And she showed up.
48:46
Looking just like this and we're talking and relating and i'm like oh i i saw that kind of same stuff and i bet you did this and when i first talked to people about their their porn use or the fact that they have a partner who is using porn.
49:03
There's a lot of related ability there and i just try to put them at ease and let you know you're not alone and.
49:10
And by the end of that call with that with that woman, she actually said to me, you know,
49:15
in her thick accent, she said to me, I never thought a white man from America was going
49:21
to help me with this. Yeah. And it's like, this is how different we are. Yeah. But we
49:28
can come together on a place on an issue. So maybe somebody maybe three years from now,
49:35
there will be a horrible thing happening and someone will discover this and they will hear
49:39
and they will think, okay, maybe I'm not crazy the way I'm processing things,
49:42
because it sounds like there really isn't a way to do it.
49:44
No, I like that because of that whole concept of differentiation of something brings up an emotion for me
49:48
and now I have an opportunity to self-confront that it's like, it's not that person's fault.
49:52
They're just doing and being, that's what we're doing. And it brings up something for somebody
49:55
and they can make that observation and judge.
49:57
That's well within their right.
49:59
Or they can say, okay, I want to tell both of those guys that they are being dumb.
50:03
How do I know that that's why?
50:04
That's a me issue because I don't even know either one of those guys.
50:07
I've never been in a town where that happens. and then so how on earth would I know?
50:11
And maybe that's gonna cultivate more empathy from somebody listening,
50:13
because they really don't know what they don't know.
50:15
You just don't.
50:17
Absolutely, and my mind, and you talked about people, you know, writing.
50:21
There are people who I haven't talked to in several years who have written me in the last few days.
50:27
And there are people I talked to last week who haven't said a damn word.
50:31
Well, and Josh, it's funny, because you and I- And I've got work not to judge them.
50:34
Like, oh, these people are nice. These people cared about me,
50:38
and these people couldn't have cared at all.
50:41
The reality is they probably don't know what to say. Many of them don't know if I know the dead
50:46
because they haven't talked to me at all. They're probably waiting for me to reach out and say,
50:50
hey, just want to let you know I'm okay.
50:53
For me myself, that's fine too. Because I got to tell you that when you responded back with that initial text,
50:58
I know we talked about it earlier, but we've texted a bunch.
51:01
We've texted really funny things and silly things and we've forgotten things
51:04
and we've remembered things and we've been late on things.
51:07
Start taking out of context, people would look at us and say, oh my god, time to cancel YouTube.
51:12
Right. But then the second that you responded, I felt so bad. And I know that you
51:17
were not intending anything. And then the next two or three days, I noticed that even I wanted to
51:21
keep wondering how he's doing, but he's probably feeling overwhelmed. Or probably a lot of people
51:25
are talking to him and I better not. And it is just funny how it brings that up because it's
51:29
the first time I've ever interacted with somebody that I've had that kind of a relationship with
51:32
that's been in a mile away situation from a mass shooting.
51:35
So I didn't have the playbook either.
51:37
Imagine that. Yeah. Well, that's it. That's it. And your daughter is connected to you.
51:42
Who's connected to me.
51:43
Who's connected to the town. And then we start playing six degrees of mass shooter to see
51:48
how close you can make yourself to it.
51:50
But I think that's just part of human nature. It is. And I don't think that it's good.
51:56
I don't think it's bad. I kind of value judgment on it.
51:59
It just kind of is. It's how at least with the media we have these days with, with the violence we have these days, I, I don't
52:09
want to dismiss any of the other 500 plus shootings that happened. Right.
52:14
But oh my God, we got the worst. Yeah. Like just, if you're going to have a mass shooting and you're.
52:20
Going to pick a ping pong ball out of a bucket of 500, and
52:23
you're going to pick number one, and that's 3.8 million square miles in the US, 3.2 million if you don't count Alaska. And I was within a mile of this.
52:33
Crazy.
52:35
For a obsessive odds stats guy like me. The odds aren't very good.
52:42
Then I figure out, I would love, okay, Josh, well, you were one in 7,300,000 this could happen to. Now those are the odds. Yeah.
52:50
Because I almost need to quantify this.
52:55
The brain's trying to make sense of it. That's adorable, right?
52:57
Right? Quantify this with math. Yeah. Because math isn't wavering.
53:03
Math is math is math. Math is how we codify things we measure. And it's not
53:10
emotional. And it doesn't get to the mental side of things. It is math is math. And that's part of what is I'm
53:20
having trouble wrapping my arms around is that.
53:23
Let's even say that it's a one in 3.8 million chance that you live within a mile of one
53:29
of these places. And I know population density, size, and blah, blah, blah, that's all different.
53:34
But okay, if it's one in 3.8 million chance of this happening, that's a less chance than
53:41
being in a plane crash. That's less chance than being hit by lightning.
53:46
It's still a lower chances to win the Powerball. That's what I was going to ask.
53:50
I was like, why couldn't those odds go there?
53:52
Yeah, to go into space or something like that. But there are a lot of massively bad things
54:00
that are far more likely to happen to someone than to live close to a situation like this
54:07
unfolding. And so if it's so rare, should I be a total basket case? I'm actually not
54:15
doing it right. Yeah, right, right. Yes. And that's if people can walk away with anything
54:19
from this is that it's seeing me in the thick of it is there is no playbook by which process.
54:30
And I think as long as you're not hurting anybody, there's no right or wrong way to do it.
54:36
And I have to let this happen. And I'm sure the shock will dissipate.
54:42
It has with other events. I'm sure that the pain will dissipate.
54:45
It has with other events.
54:46
Will the proximity be a big thing for me? I don't know, because you know, I still think
54:53
of 911. Like I said earlier in the podcast, when I drive by where one of where a couple
54:57
of the 911 guys stayed in Portland, I think about that every time still get in the car
55:03
and see masks on my floor and stuff. It's like, Oh, I remember those days a year and
55:08
a half ago, which probably speaks to me needing to clean my car. But it's, is this just another
55:15
one of these. Is this something that I'm going to be okay in a week?
55:18
Like I was during 9-11, like I kind of was during COVID, like when tragedy strikes, I usually pull it together pretty fast.
55:26
It's interesting. Okay. And I keep saying, okay, I'm going to say something very profound and we'll wrap it up and I'll give it like a very intense nod the way that they do on the national news when they say this, Joshua Shea.
55:35
But then when you just said it that way too, so I work with people that are often coming in saying, my friend said I never processed, fill in the blank, you know, my parents' death, my spouse's this, my whatever.
55:45
And then they'll say, so do you think I need to? And I love that,
55:48
because it's like, well, how do you feel about it?
55:50
Well, I just kind of feel it just happened, or it is, or I've moved on.
55:54
So then I think the answer is there, because I can help you pull some nuggets out of there,
55:59
but is that more of a me issue as the therapist?
56:01
Like, let me get you to come up with some things that you haven't thought about,
56:04
and then is that a benefit?
56:06
Or is that just now you feel like, okay, I guess I did it, so I'll check the box.
56:11
And I have a strong belief that that becomes more about the therapist
56:13
or the psychology of the peanut gallery
56:15
or people telling you, you seem okay. So that must mean you must be burying things.
56:20
This says the person that doesn't know what it's like to be you.
56:22
So then you go to the therapist and say, somebody told me that I guess I'm probably burying things,
56:26
so can you help me?
56:27
And then if the therapist is more egotistical, then they're saying, oh, I can do that
56:31
because I would like the validation that I was able to pull the things out
56:34
that you weren't aware of that your friend told you about.
56:35
And you're gonna see where it starts to be a big mess. And I love starting from a place of,
56:39
it just kind of is, check this out, this is how I'm thinking and feeling.
56:42
That's, that is the thing, but if you can't sleep and you're crippled with anxiety and
56:47
now you don't want to go out of the house, then maybe we need to talk.
56:50
Yeah, no, I, I, that's the, I'm somebody who sleeps about six hours a night tops up from
56:56
four of 20 years ago, but the last several nights it's been 10 hour sleeps.
57:03
I know, maybe anybody listening right then just judged it either.
57:05
That's too much or that's too little. He should be doing it more.
57:08
He should be doing it less. Did you, you know? Right, exactly.
57:11
Is this because I'm mentally exhausted or is this because I have an excuse to stay in bed
57:17
that, oh my God, this bad thing happened so I'm gonna stay in bed?
57:20
Or am I mentally exhausted?
57:23
And then look at that, right there, I just, after I give this big speech,
57:25
I wanna say, I think it's B, Josh, I think you're mentally exhausted,
57:28
says the guy that's never been through it, as you.
57:30
You've got plenty of plants around, you got tons of carbon monoxide or dioxide going on there,
57:34
so you should be okay.
57:36
Oxygen. Oxygen, yes, yes, yes, yes. Carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide.
57:41
Yeah, oh, really? You're not aware of that, Josh? So you need to, see, I could gaslight you there too.
57:45
Yeah. It's like somebody's loris are found dead the next morning.
57:48
Okay, there we go. Let's end with that humor. How about that?
57:53
Okay, good. Okay, see, and I knew the whole time when I was doing that,
57:55
that it was about carbon monoxide.
57:58
Yeah, thank you. Thank you for allowing me to do this. I think that I think and again,
58:04
Judge me as you will and people have forever and thankfully I have a bit of a thick skin now,
58:10
But for me to move forward, I think that in the boxes I had to check,
58:18
One of them was publicly sharing my story,
58:22
Of course, I hope a million people listen to this I hope a million people become interested in us and want to buy a book and want to learn more about what this kind of
58:30
the stuff and the projects that you and I have worked on together, but really, it's just that I think that I needed to,
58:38
Talk to somebody and I needed it to be in something of a public forum Yeah, whatever that means because I've been the guy who tells stories my whole life. Yeah.
58:49
I've been the guy who tells stories my whole life and And when something like this happens,
58:55
I fall back on what I know, and that's telling the story.
58:58
Hey, look at me, I can end your deep thoughts by making it about me, shockingly enough.
59:04
Okay. But this is, but, Wow. But okay, but this speaks to, and I've told you,
59:08
Tell the guy who wrote the Narcissist podcast.
59:10
Right, I'll run it as a bonus episode. Wrap this tragedy up for me.
59:14
Right, how you feel is, no, I don't know if you remember,
59:16
one of the things that has endeared me to you, Josh,
59:19
is when we were working on the book together, And I was a tad bit late with the manuscript.
59:24
And there were times where I just wasn't able to do it for various reasons.
59:28
And some of it was my own, sometimes challenges or doubt.
59:31
And I would feel like I had to make these excuses.
59:33
And you were, I remember this so well, you were just so good about, hey, we're both adults.
59:37
You know, you're allowed to feel the way you are.
59:39
And I just remember feeling like, whoa, I'm a, at that point, I don't know, late 40s adult human being,
59:45
mental health professional.
59:46
And I just felt like you really understood that people are going through their own things
59:50
they're going through them. And it was because of that, that there would be times where you would
59:53
say, I know we would go to meet and you're saying, Hey, I don't know, I got up to, or I stayed up
59:58
too late. I can't pull it off today. And I would say, totally forgot. And I never once felt like
1:00:04
you were judging or if you were doing it probably with some fun. And then, and I had that same
1:00:09
feeling of, okay, well, you aren't trying to hurt me or anything. So if you couldn't make it,
1:00:13
you couldn't make it. So it is, I've appreciated that about, you know, I hope that people will
1:00:17
give you that same courtesy of just you're doing and being the way you are. And so expressing
1:00:23
this is just because that's what you do. And I really appreciate that.
1:00:26
Thank God my writing partner has a podcast. We can exploit me on part of my healing.
1:00:33
Well, yeah. Well, and I, but I, yeah, but I really mean that part because it's like,
1:00:36
you know, I know, I know, I know you do. And, and we're using our secondary emotions of humor
1:00:40
because it gets uncomfortable when we're trying to be real.
1:00:43
I was saying that to my wife yesterday that, you know, we're both making jokes that because
1:00:49
that's how we sometimes communicate during things like this. Yeah. And.
1:00:54
And again, no right, no wrong, just is. I know this is one of the first times that I want to say, okay, I'm going to let you
1:01:03
go because I want to edit this thing. And I really do want to get it shared because I think it's, it's really powerful.
1:01:07
Yeah.
1:01:09
Yeah. All right. Joshua Shea. I will, I see you Thursday then.
1:01:13
I don't know. I'll text you Wednesday night. That's probably a good call. Okay. All right.
1:01:24
All right.